


A Friend in Need

by EarendilEldar



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Injury Recovery, Male Friendship, but really best friends, frienemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarendilEldar/pseuds/EarendilEldar
Summary: When Erestor is injured in an attack on a Dunedain market town, Glorfindel looks in to cheer him up.  Or annoy him.  Hard to say which.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	A Friend in Need

Erestor sat in his sitting room, still in his morning robes. The pot of tea on his table had gone cold some while ago and the pot of ink was equally untouched, despite his intentions. It was a warm morning and promised to be an unusually warm day in Imladris, but his chambers were situated more westerly in the house and would not take most of the day’s heat. It was as good a place to hide away as any and few ever sought Lord Elrond’s Chief Counselor if he was not to be found in his official study and archives.

Few, that was, with exception of Imladris’s Captain of the Guard.

Erestor considered not responding to the knock at his door. In fact, he considered it so long that the decision was taken out of his hands and his visitor opened the unbolted door for himself. Glancing up at the Golden Lord, Erestor muttered, “No manners and an ego as big as the outdoors….”

Glorfindel just smiled companionably and let himself in. 

“Haven’t you got patrols to organize?” Erestor asked, a not insignificant edge to his tone. “I would have thought after yesterday’s events -”

“That I should be here looking in on my dear friend. Well, of course, Counselor, where else?”

Erestor frowned. “I hardly think I need looking in on. I’m not likely to perish from nothing more than a little -”

“You are hardly likely to perish from much of anything,” Glorfindel said shrewdly. “But perishing and languishing are not particularly dissimilar, and since you did not attend break of fast, are not in your office, and are sat here still in your morning robes, I daresay you are at peril of languishing if someone does not intercede.”

“I rather think I might be accorded a bit of languishing after I was nearly -”

“Nearly?” Glorfindel smirked. “But, my Counselor, I thought it was nothing more a ‘little’….”

“You are infuriating,” Erestor huffed. 

Glorfindel, infuriatingly, acknowledged Erestor’s charge with a gracious bow. “I brought this as well,” he said, producing a bottle, from where Erestor wasn’t certain. 

“It isn’t even midday!” Erestor protested. 

“Oh, your pardon, Counselor. I had entirely missed the fact that you were attempting to accomplish some work this day, whilst languishing with a slashed back and, one guesses, a rather unclear head.”

“I did not require reminding,” Erestor grumbled while Glorfindel fetched a pair of glasses from the table across the sitting room, filled them, and came to sit beside Erestor on the settee.

“Here. It _will_ be a benefit,” Glorfindel said, handing Erestor a glass of the bright ruby cordial. 

“I’m not in that much pain, truly,” Erestor said, but resignedly accepted the glass. 

“Stand up and tell me how it feels after you’ve been sitting all morning. Yes, you’ll be healed, but I’ve taken my share of slashes to the back and the stiffness shall be with you for a few days if you do not keep moving. And so you must for you to be fit for the high summer festivities next week! Do you not know how all the Valley looks forward to seeing you sat at the dais in your palest of grey robes? A surer sign of summer than either crickets or berries or flowers so drunk with their own perfume they set their heads upon the ground.”

Erestor sighed. “I should be writing up the account right now. But every time I think of it, I find it harder to bring myself to do it. I’ve never before been afraid here, Glorfindel.”

“I can assure you that what happened out there shall never be seen within the Valley, Erestor. Our patrols cannot extend beyond our borders, no, but were you to go with a guard next time you have commerce outside of our jurisdiction -”

“It’s more than a matter of jurisdiction and commerce. Of course I don’t mean I’m afraid here in Imladris, but I mean here, generally, since I came here from Lindon, since Sauron was driven back. Oh, I have my worries and nightmares, but those are nothing to do with security. And it’s not for myself that I fear, either. But what is going on out there, Glorfindel? The Dunedain are not warlike people, so why should they be turning on one another as they did in that market?”

Glorfindel put a hand on Erestor’s shoulder and shrugged. “Times are hard in their lands since the contagion, I suppose. Truthfully, I’ve never had many dealings with the tribes of Men and their motives are often strange to me.”

“I’ve worked with them extensively since the Second Age and they’re still strange to me. I know full well that they do not require significant provocation to take up arms, but… what happened there was senseless. I fear that it could be some Morgul influence. More, that it might have been drawn by my ring.”

Glorfindel shook his head. “I think that quite impossible. For one thing, you were not targeted directly. Anyway, they would not be drawn to your ring. It was just ill luck.”

“Some part of Celeb is in this ring. Were he not, assuredly I should not have survived the Second Age,” Erestor said, his fingertips touching the place on his breast where his mithril ring, wrought like a sprig of _ereg_ and set with rubies, hung about his neck. “I don’t believe in ill luck. Not whiles Morgoth’s lieutenant or these wraiths of his are anywhere other than consigned to the Void.”

“It was neither such thing that caught your back with a blade yesterday, my friend. From now on, go with a guard. My soldiers are more wary of Men and less apt to ‘mind their own business’ when trouble seems to be stirring.”

“If they don’t mind their own business then I suppose _your_ influence upon them is quite clear!” Erestor said condescendingly.

“They’d be rather poor soldiers if it was not. And I a rather poor Captain,” Glorfindel laughed easily.

Erestor rolled his eyes and sipped at the cordial before reaching for Glorfindel’s hand. “Thank you for looking in on me. And for fetching me in yesterday.”

“Just doing what I’m meant to do,” Glorfindel said, squeezing Erestor’s hand reassuringly.

“I doubt rescuing unmindful counselors caught in the midst of mortal disputes was quite what the Lords had in mind when they bid you return to these shores,” Erestor muttered.

“I meant as a friend,” Glorfindel clarified.

Erestor smiled. “Aye, a good friend you are. Even if you are infuriating, egotistical, and without the most elementary of decent manners.”

Glorfindel laughed again and poured more cordial into Erestor’s glass. 


End file.
